What Might Have Been
Just when I have myself convinced I really don't mind not having a relationship with my Father of origin something like this weekend happens. Just when I have everyone I know convinced I really don't mind not having a relationship with my Father of origin I go and blog about it.
First of all I have to back up...my Mom is moving to Oregon from Montana. I can't believe I haven't blogged about that yet. Most of you follow me on Facebook so you already know that but yes, wow, my Mama and I are finally going to be back together. "Reunited and feels so good."
With that said, she's going to be living with us for an indefinite amount of time. We have a big bonus room, 300 square feet big. Just a marvelous, square room that we've used as storage and computer room (before children) and a romper/play room (after children). Up until a week ago the bonus room consisted of one couch, one chair, one play kitchen, one play workbench, 2 activity desks, 1 mini table, a tv on a stand, a bookshelf, a toy box, a dress up box and a toy cubby shelf. Then Mia swept in like an organizing angel and helped me empty it so that our friend Ryan could build a closet in there and finish up some trim work.
The room has been relatively finished for about 3 years but the window, door and floor needed trim work done. Easy enough to do but as you know already, Hot Jeff doesn't dig wood/house/DIY yourself projects. Hence, we just used the room in a slightly unfinished state. The other thing you should know about the bonus room is that when we moved into the house in January of 2004 it was down to the studs. It has taken us forever to finish that room and we have done it in stages as time and money and energy has allowed.
I swear this is getting to my Father.
When a person has the skills and tools to dry wall and frame and finish a room it really is no big deal. Materials are relatively inexpensive--its the labor that is costly. We're fortunate to have a talented crop of friends who have pitched in their time, talent and tools and the room is done, beautiful and going to be a great space for my Mom to "get away" from the craziness that is our home.
Here's where it all comes together.
My Father is a very, very talented carpenter. He has made beautiful things. He once promised to make Samuel a toy box with burned artwork on it (because he is also an incredible artist.) but alas, surprise, surprise, he never delivered on that promise.
During the different stages of working on the bonus room (just shy of a decade) I've often thought how in a normal, functioning father-daughter relationship a dad would love to come over and help his daughter with a room. I have this idyllic picture of my Dad up there working with Jeff while I feed them good food and lemonade. I picture him teaching Samuel how to use a drill and laughing at Emily's head lamp.
Instead of having us be bound to someone else's generosity my Dad would jump at the chance to hang out with all of us.
That's not how it is. I haven't spoken to my Father in over 2 years. After giving him "one more chance" he lied to me for the last time and for my mental health, sanity and sake of my children I asked him to never contact me again. He has obliged. Not a surprise that he didn't fight for the right to stay in our lives but that's a whole other blog post.
I think when it comes to John, my father, he doesn't know how to love. Or maybe he loves the best he knows how. My cousin Kristi told me that's how she thought of her own Dad and their relationship. My Uncle had the same upbringing as my Mama; an alcoholic father who left them and then was killed in a car accident. He never had much of a chance to learn the gentle nuances of fatherhood because he himself had a father who didn't know how to love or only could love the best way he knew how. I suppose there are countless books and blog posts dedicated to the sins of the fathers and cyclical familial dysfunction so I won't delve into it now but to say that something happened with John that made him incapable of loving his daughter the way she needed to be loved.
I simply will go back to the rhetorical question of what kind of Daddy doesn't help his daughter finish her bonus room? Its such a silly thing but it represents so much more doesn't it? I guess the answer that I know in my head but it hasn't (and maybe never will) made it to my head yet is the kind of Daddy who doesn't know how.
I have found a lot of freedom in that answer. When I'm feeling guility for finally putting a stop to the cycle of lies, broken promises and 2nd chances and feeling like I should continue to give "one more chance" I remember that no many how chances I give John he doesn't know how to love me. John doesn't know how to be a father let alone a Daddy. So I take a deep breath, put down my phone and remember that I DO NOT have to put my children in that same never-ending cycle. Samuel and Emily will have enough disappointment in their lives; if I can protect them, I should. If I should protect myself, I should. At some point I had to relinquish the lie that John is my responsibility. He's not.
I'll probably always play "what might have been" games in my head and heart until the day I meet Jesus face to face and He holds me on His lap and cradles me in His arms and tells me "Daddy's here. Daddy's here."
Showing posts with label Where I Come From. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Where I Come From. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Southern Baptist Churches and Boot Camp
Somehow I Will Weave It Together--Stick With Me
From my earliest memories up until my Sophomore year in high school my Mom and I attended a Southern Baptist church. We lived across from the church when we lived in Billings and my cousin Jeff and I would ride our bikes in their parking lot and wondering, even at our very young ages, what a Southern Baptist church was doing in Central Montana. Even at my early age I couldn't seem to reconcile all they held sacred with what I knew to be right. When we moved to Park City we found the one and only Southern Baptist church in an 8 mile radius and began attending its 3 weekly services and giving to the Lottie Moon fund.
Pastor Willis was the pastor of the rigid little church filled with men who prayed for too long; not because they liked to be in communion with God but because they liked the sound of their own voices. There wasn't an ounce of grace to be found at Calvary Baptist Church and even when I found my way to Christ at age 11 I did so out of fear instead of adoration and worship. I wanted redemption not to be in fellowship with the Redeemer but because I had been scared out of my mind of hell. You could look deep inside its dark corners and lofty steeple but you wouldn't find anything that resembled grace. Not in the building and certainly not in Pastor Willis. It was shortly after he criticized my 30 year old mother's parenting for allowing me to try out for cheerleading that we left Calvary and never looked back.
Of course you all know that high school girls in short skirts who cheer for high school boys end up pregnant. My Mom, who had ended up pregnant at 15 and had never once worn a cheerleading skirt found his philosophy (and theology) to be pious and self-righteous and off she went taking her single mother-single income 10% tithe (never more,never less...remember NO Grace, dammit) and Lottie Moon offering and politely told pastor Willis with his nagging voice of guilt and shame and his wall of doctrinal beliefs to kiss off.
We landed at a church not even 2 miles away from Calvary and as its name promised, grace abounded and Mom and I felt relief and weight removed.
Years later while in college I attended another Southern Baptist church one Sunday with an Inter-Varsity cronie. We sang all the familiar songs (all 6 verses of "Just As I Am") and at the end of the service after a typical hell, fire and brimstone sermon the Pastor gave the weekly alter call and like so many, many Sundays as a child I felt like I needed to walk the length of the aisle and beg for forgiveness not because of the prompting of the Holy Spirit but so he would stop asking the pianist to play "one more verse" and we could all get home to our crockpot lunches.
That afternoon I was decompressing with my Mom and I told her that despite my bitter memories and utter distaste for anything and everything to do with the Southern Baptist church I had oddly felt "at home". There was something proverbial about the hard-back hymnals, the shame filled message, the never ending alter call that was comforting and familiar deep in my soul. I have no way to explain this.
And so this long cathartic story brings me to Friday where I found myself at Boot Camp after a short, 2 week break. A footcation I call it. As I was getting my butt handed to me on a sweaty, weighted platter I thought back to that Sunday at Rimrock Baptist church and how I had loathed being there yet found it to be wonderful--every single gut wrenching minute of it.
My body tells me 'no' but I won't quite 'cause I want more filled the room and my heart beat to the rhythm of the song but the difference between this song and songs sung from "The Baptist Hymnal" was I didn't feel any guilt, no shame. I felt camaraderie with my fellow classmates whose legs were aching and lungs were burning. Tina, much to her credit and despite her tough outside demeanor, is filled with grace and she while she pushes you to your uttermost limit there is no shame, no embarrassment, when you modify a push up or walk the last lap of power skipping (aka as meth addicted Jan & Jill skipping).
And so there it was at Boot Camp on Friday morning that I began thinking of grace. And acceptance. And community. Every time, every.single.time, I go to Boot Camp I get acceptance and encouragement from my classmates who are all in far better shape than I am. Not even one time have I felt looked down upon as I stumble into class (always the last one) after laps. Never ever, ever have I been embarrassed or felt I was being judged while doing stairs and the first person in a line of 25 has caught up to me and is now slowed down because of my lagging, exhausted, barely moving legs.
God, as He so often does, confirmed my thoughts this weekend with Fowler's message (available on SAC's website in about a week) as he talked about coming along side people in their "journey of healing" and loving them rather than discouraging them.
I feel such gratitude for Tina and every single person in Boot Camp (ESPECIALLY Shannon, who will not give up on me even when I wish she would) who encourage me and hold me accountable. For whatever reason they have invested just a little bit of themselves in me as I am on my journey to wellness.
I can't help but wonder what community, acceptance and grace would have done for my young Mother as she sought Christ's love and forgiveness in church that didn't know how to share what it didn't have.
Somehow I Will Weave It Together--Stick With Me
From my earliest memories up until my Sophomore year in high school my Mom and I attended a Southern Baptist church. We lived across from the church when we lived in Billings and my cousin Jeff and I would ride our bikes in their parking lot and wondering, even at our very young ages, what a Southern Baptist church was doing in Central Montana. Even at my early age I couldn't seem to reconcile all they held sacred with what I knew to be right. When we moved to Park City we found the one and only Southern Baptist church in an 8 mile radius and began attending its 3 weekly services and giving to the Lottie Moon fund.
Pastor Willis was the pastor of the rigid little church filled with men who prayed for too long; not because they liked to be in communion with God but because they liked the sound of their own voices. There wasn't an ounce of grace to be found at Calvary Baptist Church and even when I found my way to Christ at age 11 I did so out of fear instead of adoration and worship. I wanted redemption not to be in fellowship with the Redeemer but because I had been scared out of my mind of hell. You could look deep inside its dark corners and lofty steeple but you wouldn't find anything that resembled grace. Not in the building and certainly not in Pastor Willis. It was shortly after he criticized my 30 year old mother's parenting for allowing me to try out for cheerleading that we left Calvary and never looked back.
Of course you all know that high school girls in short skirts who cheer for high school boys end up pregnant. My Mom, who had ended up pregnant at 15 and had never once worn a cheerleading skirt found his philosophy (and theology) to be pious and self-righteous and off she went taking her single mother-single income 10% tithe (never more,never less...remember NO Grace, dammit) and Lottie Moon offering and politely told pastor Willis with his nagging voice of guilt and shame and his wall of doctrinal beliefs to kiss off.
We landed at a church not even 2 miles away from Calvary and as its name promised, grace abounded and Mom and I felt relief and weight removed.
Years later while in college I attended another Southern Baptist church one Sunday with an Inter-Varsity cronie. We sang all the familiar songs (all 6 verses of "Just As I Am") and at the end of the service after a typical hell, fire and brimstone sermon the Pastor gave the weekly alter call and like so many, many Sundays as a child I felt like I needed to walk the length of the aisle and beg for forgiveness not because of the prompting of the Holy Spirit but so he would stop asking the pianist to play "one more verse" and we could all get home to our crockpot lunches.
That afternoon I was decompressing with my Mom and I told her that despite my bitter memories and utter distaste for anything and everything to do with the Southern Baptist church I had oddly felt "at home". There was something proverbial about the hard-back hymnals, the shame filled message, the never ending alter call that was comforting and familiar deep in my soul. I have no way to explain this.
And so this long cathartic story brings me to Friday where I found myself at Boot Camp after a short, 2 week break. A footcation I call it. As I was getting my butt handed to me on a sweaty, weighted platter I thought back to that Sunday at Rimrock Baptist church and how I had loathed being there yet found it to be wonderful--every single gut wrenching minute of it.
My body tells me 'no' but I won't quite 'cause I want more filled the room and my heart beat to the rhythm of the song but the difference between this song and songs sung from "The Baptist Hymnal" was I didn't feel any guilt, no shame. I felt camaraderie with my fellow classmates whose legs were aching and lungs were burning. Tina, much to her credit and despite her tough outside demeanor, is filled with grace and she while she pushes you to your uttermost limit there is no shame, no embarrassment, when you modify a push up or walk the last lap of power skipping (aka as meth addicted Jan & Jill skipping).
And so there it was at Boot Camp on Friday morning that I began thinking of grace. And acceptance. And community. Every time, every.single.time, I go to Boot Camp I get acceptance and encouragement from my classmates who are all in far better shape than I am. Not even one time have I felt looked down upon as I stumble into class (always the last one) after laps. Never ever, ever have I been embarrassed or felt I was being judged while doing stairs and the first person in a line of 25 has caught up to me and is now slowed down because of my lagging, exhausted, barely moving legs.
God, as He so often does, confirmed my thoughts this weekend with Fowler's message (available on SAC's website in about a week) as he talked about coming along side people in their "journey of healing" and loving them rather than discouraging them.
I feel such gratitude for Tina and every single person in Boot Camp (ESPECIALLY Shannon, who will not give up on me even when I wish she would) who encourage me and hold me accountable. For whatever reason they have invested just a little bit of themselves in me as I am on my journey to wellness.
I can't help but wonder what community, acceptance and grace would have done for my young Mother as she sought Christ's love and forgiveness in church that didn't know how to share what it didn't have.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Dads: Real and Fake
So yesterday Iimplied said clearly that Rod Stewart is my real father. I feel I should follow this up with a story. And its State Fair season and there is no better time to talk about my Dad than State Fair season...
I come from a long line of funny and irreverent women both on my Mom's side and my not-real Dad's side. So it was no surprise to my Mom that by the age of 4 I "got" her jokes and wickedly fresh sense of humor.
One evening when I was about 6 or 7 my Mom was in our tiny apartment's even tinier bathroom primping for a date with Roy. We all called him "Roy Boy" and for that reason alone I can be thankful that things didn't work out between he and my Mom and that he didn't become my step dad or I may be riding on the back of a hawg on my to Sturgis right now instead of writing this post in my pajamas in my sweet little suburb neighborhood.
Anyway, I remember this evening and the bathroom perfectly. I can still see the little wood plaques with a little boy and a little girl painted on them. They each had those big mushroomy looking hats on and were wearing green. You could see them from wherever you stood in the bathroom because even if you had your back to them you could see their reflection in the mirror.
My Mom was primping in the mirror and I was sitting on the closed toilet seat lid adoringly watching her put on her makeup. She was beautiful and I wanted to be just like her. That evening she looked particularly gorgeous because she was wearing the-most-awesome-brown-cowboy-boots-ever. They were super hot looking, not cowpokey, and when she wore them I always had to help peel her out of them. "Pull Jenny, pull" and I would pull until the boot came flying off and I would fall to my boney butt from the force of it; Mom and I would giggle as I stood up to do the other one.
We were listening to our favorite record, Rod Stewart! It was the one where he's wearing that shiny pink shirt and has flowy blond hair on the cover. Dreamy. Mom stopped singing Maggie May and slowly put her mascara wand back in its tube. She looked at me earnestly and said, "Rod Stewart is your real dad". She sighed and went back to applying her mascara.
Again, totally getting my Mom's sense of humor I knew it was a fabulous lie and remarkably to this day we still have the ongoing "joke" that Rod Stewart is my real dad.
Somewhere in Montana my Mom is clutching her heart and gasping for air right now because I just shared this story with the whole wide world internet. Breathe deeply Mom, breathe deeply. No one can call child services on you 28 years later.
And so this brings us to the State Fair story and my Dad. The real one. Well the not-real one since Rod is my real one.
My Dad split when he found out my Mom was pregnant. You can't blame him--here she had been having a steamy affair with Rod Stewart all this time; you can't expect a guy to stick around after he learns that so he did what any guy would do in his situation: he became a carnie. A State Fair carnie. Wow, I am so proud of my roots right now it is friggin' ridiculous.
And legend has it that on that early Autumn night in September '76 when I was born somehow my Mom got word to him that he had a daughter and not having in cigars handy, he passed out cigarettes to all his carnie buddies.
God bless the Tilt-a-Whirl, Its a Girl!
So yesterday I
I come from a long line of funny and irreverent women both on my Mom's side and my not-real Dad's side. So it was no surprise to my Mom that by the age of 4 I "got" her jokes and wickedly fresh sense of humor.
One evening when I was about 6 or 7 my Mom was in our tiny apartment's even tinier bathroom primping for a date with Roy. We all called him "Roy Boy" and for that reason alone I can be thankful that things didn't work out between he and my Mom and that he didn't become my step dad or I may be riding on the back of a hawg on my to Sturgis right now instead of writing this post in my pajamas in my sweet little suburb neighborhood.
Anyway, I remember this evening and the bathroom perfectly. I can still see the little wood plaques with a little boy and a little girl painted on them. They each had those big mushroomy looking hats on and were wearing green. You could see them from wherever you stood in the bathroom because even if you had your back to them you could see their reflection in the mirror.
My Mom was primping in the mirror and I was sitting on the closed toilet seat lid adoringly watching her put on her makeup. She was beautiful and I wanted to be just like her. That evening she looked particularly gorgeous because she was wearing the-most-awesome-brown-cowboy-boots-ever. They were super hot looking, not cowpokey, and when she wore them I always had to help peel her out of them. "Pull Jenny, pull" and I would pull until the boot came flying off and I would fall to my boney butt from the force of it; Mom and I would giggle as I stood up to do the other one.
We were listening to our favorite record, Rod Stewart! It was the one where he's wearing that shiny pink shirt and has flowy blond hair on the cover. Dreamy. Mom stopped singing Maggie May and slowly put her mascara wand back in its tube. She looked at me earnestly and said, "Rod Stewart is your real dad". She sighed and went back to applying her mascara.
Again, totally getting my Mom's sense of humor I knew it was a fabulous lie and remarkably to this day we still have the ongoing "joke" that Rod Stewart is my real dad.
Somewhere in Montana my Mom is clutching her heart and gasping for air right now because I just shared this story with the whole wide world internet. Breathe deeply Mom, breathe deeply. No one can call child services on you 28 years later.
And so this brings us to the State Fair story and my Dad. The real one. Well the not-real one since Rod is my real one.
My Dad split when he found out my Mom was pregnant. You can't blame him--here she had been having a steamy affair with Rod Stewart all this time; you can't expect a guy to stick around after he learns that so he did what any guy would do in his situation: he became a carnie. A State Fair carnie. Wow, I am so proud of my roots right now it is friggin' ridiculous.
And legend has it that on that early Autumn night in September '76 when I was born somehow my Mom got word to him that he had a daughter and not having in cigars handy, he passed out cigarettes to all his carnie buddies.
God bless the Tilt-a-Whirl, Its a Girl!
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